So, what happened to the suicide pills?
by ReadyFred-ReadyGeorge
Summary: Sam takes a peek into Baird's Journal looking more ammunition for Verbal abuse. What she finds changes her opinion of him forever. Rated M for 'Gears of War' level swearing.


_Author's note: I hope you all had a merry Christmas, and I hope you will have a happy new year. Once again, I'm breaking off from writing 'Amegakure' to type this, due to me having no idea how to begin Chapter 7. I'm getting there, but you'll have to bear with me. I haven't yet played Gears of War 3, but I've diligently completed Gears 1 and 2, and know enough about the characters in Gears 3 to put this little ditty together. I hope you all enjoy it, please read and review._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gears of War. Kim wouldn't have died if I owned it. _

_WARNING: UNGODLY AMOUNT OF STRONG LANGUAGE, but hey, it wouldn't be Gears of War without it now would it?_

So...what happened to those suicide pills?

Part of her knew she really shouldn't be doing this, that it was a terrible invasion of his privacy and by extension a breach of his fundamental human rights, blah blah blah. The vast majority of her however didn't really give a shite. She needed more ammunition for verbal sparring, and what better place to look than in a man's journal. Even a man so far up his own arsehole as Baird must have locked something private and sensitive in here, something she could drag kicking, screaming and swearing into the world for all to laugh at. Especially a man so far up his own arsehole as Baird. She had no idea what lay within the journal, but she knew it would be well worth the effort it had taken to break into Baird's footlocker to get the bloody thing. Credit where it was due, the smug genius knew how to keep the lid on something. Most gears settled for a padlock. Not Baird. It just had to be a bloody electronic 8-digit combination didn't it? 72629763. She'd made a note to memorize the number, it was her ultimate power over him, and she relished it. Settling herself comfortably into a sofa in the deserted soldier's mess, she carefully opened the invitingly forbidden book, allowing herself a small chuckle as she did so. Many of the pages were torn or illegible in a variety of different ways, be it burned beyond recognition, blood stained, or just plain muddy. One page in the middle had a rather large, yawning hole in the middle that she had no difficulty recognising as the calling card of a Longshot round. Even she winced at the thought of poor little Baird being roused forcibly from scribbling down his emotions by a short-sighted Locust Sniper. Most of it however was still intact, and ready to be unveiled against it's owner's will. Samantha Byrne turned to the earliest legible page and began to pore over it.

_Jacinto Med, 12 Years after E-Day: Cole's right about things once in a while, there is a lot to be said for life in the COG. I get three square meals a day, not all of which taste like putrified vomit (which is more than can be said for the stranded...I swear those guys literally eat their own feaces, if you want proof, just take a whiff of the assholes. I digress) _

Sam nodded in silent agreement at Baird's penmanship, recalling the son-of-a-bitch at Hanover who'd offered to trade a side of Bacon for her. Baird wasn't always wrong, but she was never going to tell him that.

_The equipment is decent and up-to-date, seeing as it's all Prescott ever spends money on these days. People are always asking me to fix their shit (good to know my godly skills are in high demand around here.)_

Sam rolled her eyes skyward, the only thing Baird was 'godly' at was being a prick.

_And hey, I've got a gun with a chainsaw on it, it's like fucking Christmas. Problem is, I don't share in 'The Cole Train's' apparent immortality, and ergo, I get the shit end of the stick as well, unlike number eighty-fucking-three. Which is why I'm stuck here. The shit end of the stick is currently assuming the form of a Hammerburst round in my left leg, leaving me stuck in a hospital bed tearing my goddamn hair out. And do you know why? It's not the hospital food, which _always _tasted like putrified vomit. It's not the pain from my fucked up leg. No, it's the bitch-queen in the bed across the room. God Almighty, you have no idea the level of pisstake I'm getting, 'Don't be such a Pussy Blondie', 'Aww, did Blondie get a boo-boo? Want mummy to come put a plaster on it?', 'Hey Blondie, stop whining, you'd be better spending your time growing a pair.' Fucking bitch. Everything about her drives me nuts, even her accent, she's probably from Anvegad or the South Islands or some other place in the ass end of nowhere, it'd explain her stupid voice, and the incessant need to throw the letter E at the end of curses. If I hear the word 'Shite' one more time I'll tear my own head off..._

Sam had no difficulty working out what the next word she'd say to Baird would be. The rest of the entry had been burned off, but Sam could remember it anyways. She was the one who'd given him such a hard time in the hospital, and she took perverse pleasure in knowing she wouldn't change a thing if it ever happened again, Pussies deserved pisstake, it was a fundamental law of life. She had to flick through several more similarly charred pages before she found another readable one. Baird obviously hadn't used his diary too often, because the next entry she found had been inked in a good three years later.

_En-route to Lethia Immulsion facility, 15 years after E-day: Okay, I officially hate my life. All today was meant to be was a simple in-out recon mission, recover the resonator, go home. That was it. Those were Hoffman's exact mission parameters, and now look at me. Gyules and Rojas are both dead, I've nearly gotten diarrhoea from Stranded cuisine, watched Lieuteant Kim (the only front-line officer I'd ever met who wasn't six feet up his own ass) get disembowelled by General fucking RAAM! And now I'm stuck in an APC that could fall apart at any second, in the middle of a Kyrll-Storm, with some complete cockwipe called Fenix, whose leading me and the rest of Delta-one on a suicide mission. So yeah, Just motherfucking great isn't it. You know what, I'm even missing Byrne! That's how bad this shit is. _

Sam found herself taken aback by this. Choosing her over certain death was the highest compliment he'd ever paid her. Smiling in a less sadistic way than before, she continued to read, intrigued.

_I genuinely wish she was here right now, partly because she's better company than Fenix, and partly out of the sadistic glee I'd get knowing she was knee deep in this shit as well. Hell, I even miss her insulting me. What the fuck is going wrong with me. I think prolonged exposure to Cole and Dom is turning me into a pussy. _

'You needed no help with that.' Muttered Sam to herself, but despite that, she still felt uncharacteristically warmed by what Baird had written all those months ago, whether or not he'd been thigh deep in metaphorical crap at the time, it felt strangely good to know he'd missed her.

_We've arrived at the facility, better wrap this up here. If I survive this godforsaken mess, I'm buying that woman a beer and letting her rip the piss out of me all night._

Sam smiled, he hadn't followed up on that particular promise, but then again, having to brave locust tunnels, help kill RAAM and set off the lightmass bomb was a fairly legitimate excuse for forgetting a date. More burned and bloodied pages followed this one, but at length Sam found more of Damon Baird's scribbling. The first half of the next entry had been torn out, but there was enough information in the second half for Sam to pinpoint when Baird had written it.

_...dreadlocks and some double-bladed chansaw polearm thing. I did what I always do in such dire situations, get the fuck out of the way while Marcus and Dom handle it. God that was insane beyond belief. Gotta hand it to Marcus there, gunning down freaky ass grubs (and their ridiculously big, flying Hyra, tentacly mounts) is his particular speciality, as is improvising bombs to sink cities evidently. I've seen some weird shit since I joined the COG, but a Lambent, mutating Brumak? That's just plain wrong on so many levels I can't count. Thank God I'm not sharing a Raven with Cole for once, getting a vomit-shower would just be the icing on the fucking cake. When we get to wherever the fuck it is we're going, I'm gonna go find Sam. Everyone in Delta is depressed as hell, mainly over Dom and his wife. Poor guy, I feel for him, really I do, but right now I need something to cheer me up, and fucking odd as it sounds, I seem to keep falling back on little miss Byrne (she'd rip off my balls if she knew i'd called her that) and her verbal arsenal for just that. _

If he hadn't immediately followed that up with a veiled compliment, then ripping his balls off would have been sorely tempting. He looked forward to their arguments? That was news to her, though she could hardly say she didn't share in the sentiment. A bit of good natured verbal abuse never hurt anyone now did it?

_This is going to sound even crazier, but the moment Dom told me about what happened to Maria, I couldn't help but think about her. Seriously, I'm dwelling on her so much it scares me. I'm not good at writing emotional stuff, and I'm certainly never going to tell her this to her face. But you get the idea. She means a lot to me...She'd also run me through with her Chainsaw Bayonet and mount my balls on her mantelpiece if she knew that. _

'You'd think that,' Sam muttered to herself. Her smile had faded somewhat, receeding into a tight-lipped look of deep thoughtfulness. She'd dug up his journal to try and get embarrassing dirt on him, and she had a feeling she knew what said dirt was going to be. But what scared her at this point, was that it didn't scare her. Sam rifled through to the next legible page, dread and anxiety building in equal measure with every charcoaled or bloodied leaf she turned over. Baird had a sensitive side? She could faintly hear the wingbeats of an army of Pigs recently discovering the power of flight. The next entry was only a single line long, he'd jotted it in during a spare minute on the Hanover mission a few weeks ago.

_Of all the cracks she had to use, it just had to be about settling down and having kids didn't it? _

Of all he'd written so far, that one line took her aback the most. She'd only said it as a light jab, she'd had no idea it had gotten under his skin like that. For the first time in her life, she was struck by the need to apologise to Baird. Maybe he'd genuinely pictured the idea of settling down...with her.'Oh god!' she cried, closing the journal and burying her face in her hands, a single tear trickled down her cheek, leaving a lone streak of crystal painted down her face. Gears didn't cry. That had been drilled into her from her first day in basic. No matter what happened, no matter what the enemy threw at you, no matter what you suffered. Gears never cried. Kim hadn't shed a tear on his death, neither had Tai or Dom. Fuck, even Clay Carmine never even sobbed, and he lost two brothers! Anthony and Ben were tattooed on his arm, so he could never forget what his family had gone through. But he'd still taken it like a man. No tears, not even one. So why the hell was she sobbing over this? _It's cus you're a woman!_ Would be Baird's response, that or some other sexist, dickheaded remark to cover up his sympathy.

'Why can't he ever just show how he really feels?' she stammered. But she didn't make it halfway into thinking she'd have never said anything if he'd been honest with his feelings, when she heard a voice behind her.

'Because the world expects me to be an asshole'

Sam practically jumped out of her skin, she shot bolt upright, swivelling round from her perch on the sofa, Baird's journal flying out of her lap, landing neatly in front of its owner, who was leaning against the doorframe, wearing an expression of utter, uncharacteristic melancholy.

'How far through it did you get?' asked Baird, bending down to pick up his plundered journal. His voice didn't show the slightest hint of anger, or even annoyance. If anything, he sounded...relieved. Taking an unsteady breath, Sam replied:

'Hanover.' Baird nodded and sat down next to Sam on the couch. Neither of them said anything for a while, but Sam couldn't help but notice her squadmate fidgeting with something in his pocket. After a few minutes silence which was somewhere between respectful and awkward, Baird spoke.

'You may as well read the last entry, it...it makes the rest a lot easier for me.'

She had no idea what he meant, but she took back the journal with a trembling hand. Rifling through to the page after the Hanover entry, Sam swallowed deeply and began to read, not entirely sure what she would find, but with a fairly good idea, Sam began to read.

_Azura Island, 17 years after E-Day: Where the fuck do I even begin? So much has gone down in the time since I last had a spare minute to write. I guess the best place to begin is with Dom. When we arrived on Azura, Marcus told us how they'd gotten pinned down in Mercy by a fucking army of Lambent. Dom sacrificed himself to save them all. Words don't do it justice. It's devastating. But at least he's with Maria now. And he'd be proud to know what we managed to accomplish. We found Marcus' Dad at Azura, Prescott had been keeping him there, the asshole. Anyway, Professor Fenix had been working on a weapon do destroy the lambent, by causing all the immulsion in their systems to decay, or some crazy shit like that, and it worked! It actually fucking worked! Even Myyrah, bitch ass queen numero uno, couldn't stop us. We fucking did it, War's over! I have no idea how to say it any other way than that, the English language doesn't remotely do the elation justice. But all good things come at a price, Marcus' Dad didn't make it. The guy had injected immulsion into his own bloodsteam and hyper accelerated it to test it's mutating effects, so when the weapon went off, it destroyed him too. I don't even want to write about it. A) Cus it's Marcus' business and B) It was horrible to watch. But it's things like this that remind me, in my less asshole-esque moments that now the War's ended, I owe it to all the guys I've met over the last fifteen years, who didn't make it: Anthony and Ben Carmine, Lieutenant Kim, Tai Kaliso, Michael Barrick, Adam Fenix, the list goes on, but especially Dom. I owe them a good life. That is to say, I should live life to the full, because they died to give me and all the other Gears, civilians, fuck: even the stranded, they gave us all the opportunity to do so. And I know exactly how I'm gonna start. If these pages had a consciousness, they would have no difficulty in guessing who I'm about to talk about. It's been five years since that day at Jacinto Med, and though my leg's long since healed. My heart hasn't ever fully recuperated, nor do I want it to. At first she was an annoyance, some Satan-spawn sent to make my life a living hell, as if the grubs weren't doing that already. Then she became a friend, albeit one who knew how to push all my buttons, but a friend nonetheless. Then she became the person I sought out whenever I needed a pick me up. And now...well, screw it. If this book has somehow fallen into the wrong hands, (most likely Cole's) then they can guess where I'm going with this by now anyway, even with half the pages missing. I have nothing to lose by admitting: I love her. There, I said it. I love her. I think about her all the time, it scares me shitless whenever we're on separate missions, because I don't know if we'll ever see each other again, especially after what happened to Dom. I've had her picture in my shirt pocket ever since we left Vectes, and whenever she's not around, I'm always staring at it, wishing she was here. She's not the hottest girl I've ever met, or the tallest, nor does she have the biggest...you get the idea. But she's easily the most awesome, smartest, wittiest, most caring (to everyone else but me, which is my own fault I guess) woman on the planet, even though she still drives me half-mad. I've never met anyone like Samantha Byrne, and I never will again. I'm not sure what else to say. Other than I'm gonna tell her all this at the first opportunity, and if she punches me in the face for it (and she will) then so be it. _

_Cpl. Damon Baird. (If I wasn't such an asshole all the time, I'd probably be General Damon Baird by now)_

Sam closed the book with a sense of finality, and set it down on the sofa between them. She was utterly robbed of words. The last hour had turned her opinion of the man before her utterly on its head. He _loved_ her? Damon Baird, the guy who went out of his way to be an dick to the whole world, genuinely _loved_ her? Not only were the pigs flying, but the entire farm had propelled itself skyward to join them.

'Everybody's looked at me from say one, and for one reason or another, be it that I'm smart, or scientific, or good with machines, blah blah blah, for one reason or another, people think I'm an asshole. So that's always been what I've given them. And it's only since meeting you that I've begun to realise, that maybe that wasn't the best idea.' The words stepped slowly and carefully from Baird's mouth at a steady pace, he'd given a great deal of thought to what he was saying. By contrast, it was taking Sam a great deal of thought to make sense of the last five minutes. Naturally, she offered no verbal input, so Baird continued.

'When I met you, everything changed. I'd cut myself off from everyone else, focussed on number one, because I was convinced the world didn't give a crap about me anyway, but from the moment I met you, I couldn't help but care about you. I know I made a rat's-ass of showing it, but I did. After years of giving everyone else the cold shoulder, I found myself with nobody to talk to about it, and I was way too nervous to bring it up with you, so I kept up the asshole facade, confided in my journal and hoped it would all blow over. But it didn't. It never has.'

Sam finally found the courage to speak, had it been yesterday, she would have called Baird a pussy and genuinely decked him in the nose for being a smarmy git, but the last hour spent reading his private thoughts had forever eroded her animosity towards him.

'I never r-realised you had a caring side..' she stammered uncharacteristically, a smile forming on her lips despite herself. Damon caught the look, and carried on, confidence building in his chest. Like a lion before his first hunt.

'Sam, what I told you on Centinnial Bridge, the whole 'I don't..I really really don't' thing, was the biggest pile of horseshit I've ever sold anybody in my life, I...I do love you. So fucking much it's practically untrue, and since God's graced me by getting me through the last 17 years of bullet-ridden shit alive, I plan on repaying him by living life to the fullest fucking extent I can, and to do that, I need you. What do you say?'

Sam cocked an eyebrow, fighting the urge to shatter her tomboyish persona into a million pieces and giggle like a little girl. 'What exactly are you saying there Baird, clarify the 'you need me' part.'

And that is when Damon Baird officially shed his mantle of 'The one true dickhead'. The blonde Gear dropped down on one knee before Sam. He had no ring to offer her, not that he, or any other gear could ever afford one, so he produced his COG tags from under his armour and offered them to her. In a way that meant infinitely more than a ring. To a Gear, your tags were the most valuable item you had; it was the difference between whether you were officially alive or dead, and if you were the latter, it was all that proved you ever had an identity when you were alive. It was the ultimate proof of who you were, and to give it to another person (though the sentiment would be lost on anyone who wasn't also a Gear) was proof that you trusted them utterly and wanted to be with them.

'Samantha Byrne, will you marry me?'

Since the English language had failed her by this point, Sam settled for the Universal answer for 'Yes' in this particular situation: launching herself from her perch on the sofa, she rugby tacked Baird to the floor and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Or, more accurately, because there finally _was_ a tomorrow, and they'd be damned if they weren't spending it together. After what felt like hours of passionate elation, they finally broke apart, both grinning wider than Cole after a Cougars Victory.

'So, what I said back in Hanover about settling down with kids and a dog?' grinned Sam, cocking an eyebrow at the red-faced, blonde-haired gear underneath her.

'Maybe I won't have to invest in those suicide pills after all' he replied.

_Baird always has and always will be my favourite Gears of War character, by a distance. I was surprised by the number of fanfics that involved Baird being romantically involved with OC's, and I was equally shocked by the fact that after Gears 3 came out, only 2 of them involved Sam. Either I have found a niche in the market, or nobody actually gives a damn. I suspect the latter, but hey, it was fun writing this, and that's all that matters. I'll get back to 'Amegakure' soon, I promise. And all the positive reaction I got to 'Plan B' is definitely inspiring me to get another Harry Potter fic in the pipeline. Watch this space._

_By the way, I may as well point out that Baird's locker combination: 72629763 is how one would numerically write 'S.A.M. B.Y.R.N.E.' I was going to include that, But the story started to write itself and I couldn't find an opportunity to include it, so I thought I'd clarify it here._

_Happy New Year to you all_

_RFRG_


End file.
